


The Journey Arc

by mithrel



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Blanket Permission, Drunken Confessions, First Kiss, M/M, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-17
Updated: 2009-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chekov and Sulu's first meeting, and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trajectory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sulu meets Chekov. He's not impressed.

Sulu’s heading across the bay to the Enterprise, when he bumps into someone.

“Sorry.”

He looks at the person who’s just apologized to him. A kid, can’t be more than eighteen at most, pale skin and freckles and a mop of curly red hair. Kinda cute.

“No problem.” He holds out his hand. “Hikaru Sulu.”

The kid shakes it. “Pavel Chekov. We’d better go.”

He’s got a marked Russian accent, Sulu notes.

As they walk, he keeps expecting Chekov to split off, towards the _Farragut_ or the _Hood_. But he doesn’t. “Where are you assigned?”

“The _Enterprise._ ”

Sulu stops in his tracks. “ _Seriously?_ ”

Chekov looks offended. “Yes!”

“How old are you, kid?”

“Seventeen.” he said sullenly.

Thought so. “You’re _seventeen_ and they’re assigning you to the best ship in the ‘Fleet?”

“Yes.” Chekov begins stalking off.

Sulu hurries to catch up to him again. “How long have you even been at the Academy?”

“Ten months.”

“Great. Tell me again, _why_ you’re on the _Enterprise_?”

Chekov pouts. It’s an adorable expression. “I’ve done very well in my courses!”

“I’m sure you have, kid, I’m sure you have,” Sulu says absently, as the _Enterprise_ comes into view. No time to take it all in, the clean lines, the sleek design. They have to go.

***

He makes an idiot of himself. He knew about the damned inertial dampeners, he’d done God only knew how many flight simulations. But the kid is sitting next to him, at the navigator’s position, and he’s distracted.

Chekov smirks at him as they go to warp. He glares back. This is going to be a long trip.

***

One minute, he’s falling, Kirk’s chute not strong enough to support two, sure he’s going to die…

The next, he’s sprawled on the transporter pad, safe.

Kirk picks himself up off the floor with a groan. “Next time get your own lift.”

Sulu grins at him. “Yes, sir.”

It’s only then he looks over to see the transporter operator, and damned if it isn’t that kid. He’s managed to pull off the impossible, locking on to them when they were falling at thirteen meters per second per second.

Kirk’s already talking to him. “Good job, Mr. Chekov.”

“Thank you sir!” the kid says, beaming at him.

Sulu finally gets up off the floor himself, as Kirk leaves the transporter bay. He coughs. “You did good, kid.”

Chekov smiles at him, and his stomach is suddenly somewhere else. He ignores the fact, and heads back up to the bridge.

***

He’s back on Earth, the _Narada_ destroyed, and he, and all the rest of the _Enterprise_ crew, are heroes. It’s disgusting to be a hero when an entire planet, one of the founding members of the Federation, is _gone_ , its people decimated.

He’s standing at a wall display, looking over the I.D. numbers for the crew of the _Enterprise_. He’s signed on as helmsman. Kirk’s there, of course, and Dr. McCoy, as well as Uhura, and that Scott fellow. He scans the list again. No Chekov.

Good. Kid’s too young to serve on a starship anyway, and he doesn’t need the distraction. Let him go through the Academy properly first.

“Memorized all the I.D. numbers yet?”

Startled, he looks over to see the kid–Chekov, he corrects himself, he’s got a name–standing next to him.

“I was just looking to see who’s signed on the _Enterprise._ You’re not on there.” He tries not to sound petulant.

“Yes I am.” Chekov points to an entry near the bottom, which he hadn’t noticed. “Navigator.”

“I’d have thought you’d want to go in the transporter room, after that stunt you pulled.”

Chekov shrugs.

“By the way, congratulations on your promotion, Ensign.”

Chekov grins at him, and his stomach goes AWOL again. “You too.”

“I won’t be the same rank as you for long, you know.”

“Oh?” There’s an impish twinkle in his eyes. “We’ll see.”


	2. Trajectory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chekov crams, and Sulu gets drunk.

Chekov walks back to his dorm room, exhausted, and dumps the padds in his arms onto the table with a clatter. Half of them fall on the floor; he leaves them and flops on the couch.

Starfleet has said that any cadets wishing to sign on board a starship need to pass all their courses. That’s fine for most of the _Enterprise_ crew, but he’s only just started his second year at the Academy, and he has twelve tests to take.

Well, six now. He’s been studying since he got back, with scarcely a moment’s rest. He’s just got back from taking his Advanced Temporal Physics exam. He’d left the two electives till last, knowing he’d be exhausted long before he took those tests.

He’s passed all the tests so far, but the _Enterprise_ ships out in two weeks.

His classmates think he’s crazy.

“What’s the big rush?” Oliver had asked him, when he told him he wanted to ship out with the _Enterprise_. “You’ve got plenty of time to get an assignment.”

He doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t _want_ just any assignment, he wants the _Enterprise_ , and this may be his only chance; doesn’t tell him that having been out there, he doesn’t want to be stuck planetside for three years.

“Pavel, you’re exhausting yourself, take a break,” Mona tells him, when she picks up Ian to walk to class.

“I’m fine,” he insists, though he knows he looks awful.

She gives him one last concerned look and then leaves.

Ian, his roommate, has simply pronounced him “mental,” and stays out of the room as much as possible, which is fine with him, since it means there are fewer distractions.

***

When the day comes that the _Enterprise_ is shipping out, he reports to the shuttleport, having passed all his courses.

He has his head in his hands, trying to take a nap, when he feels someone sit next to him. “You OK?”

He looks up to see Sulu looking at him in concern. “I just passed three years of coursework in three weeks.”

Sulu’s eyes bug out. “You’re _kidding!_ ”

He shakes his head ruefully. “I wish I was. Nothing had better happen once we get out there, not until I’ve had a chance to get some sleep.”

Sulu grins at him, and is quiet for the rest of the trip.

***

They warp out of spacedock (Sulu getting it right on the first try, this time) and head out of the solar system. It’s a standard exploration and survey mission, and there’s nothing much to see this close to Earth, so their first day is quiet.

At the end of shift, he and Sulu are waylaid by Scotty. “We should celebrate our first day out!”

“I don’t think–” Chekov starts.

“Aw, c’mon, it’ll be fun!” Sulu coaxes, so he gives in.

Scotty’s idea of “celebration” is getting plastered. Chekov only has one drink; he has duty tomorrow, after all, and he’s still exhausted. Scotty has several, but still seems fairly sober.

Sulu, however, gets tanked.

“I love you,” he slurs, throwing his arm around Chekov’s shoulders. Chekov bats him away with an amused glance at Scotty.

“Sure you do, Sulu,” he agrees.

“No,” Sulu says, wagging a finger in his face. “I _leally_ …really love you,”

“I think you’ve had enough, lad,” Scotty says, taking the bottle away from him. “Better get him to bed.”

“Yeah. Come on, Sulu.” He slings his friend’s arm over his shoulder and they stagger toward his quarters.

***

He manages to get Sulu to his quarters and opens the door. “See you tomorrow.”

Sulu looks at him. “You’re not coming in?”

“No,” Chekov tells him. “Not unless you need–”

He’s cut off by Sulu kissing him sloppily on the mouth.

He shoves him off. “Sulu!”

“Come on,” his friend says, voice suddenly hoarse. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

He hasn’t, at least not consciously. He’s most definitely thinking about it now, however. _He’s drunk, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he doesn’t mean it._

“Goodnight, Sulu,” he says firmly, and closes the door in his face.


	3. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

When Sulu wakes up, he wishes he hadn’t. He hasn’t felt like this particular grade of shit in a long time.

“Computer,” he croaks, “Lights, 25%.”

He winces away from the hot needles stabbing into his brain through his eyeballs. What the hell had he done last night?

He staggers to the bathroom, head pounding in time with his pulse, fumbles out a hypospray filled with hangover cure, drops it, swears, picks it up, fumbles it open and presses it to his neck.

As his head clears, he tries to gather his scattered memories. He’d gone to the shuttleport…they’d shipped out…then…ah, yes, Scotty wanted to “celebrate.”

He briefly fantasizes about killing the Scotsman, but realizes he has no one but himself to blame for having far more than was good for him. He tries to recall if he’d done anything stupid.

And groans again, as memory floods back. He’d told Chekov he loved him…nothing wrong with that, everyone did that when they were drunk…but then he’d kissed him.

He flops down on his rumpled, sweat-soaked bed, wondering how the hell he’s going to handle this. He’d been friends with Chekov, and still wanted to be, not to mention they were going to have to work together and it would be a long five years if they weren’t speaking to each other.

He decides the best thing to do is to pretend he doesn’t remember anything, hunts up a clean uniform, and staggers into the shower.

***

Chekov seems to take longer than usual to lay in the coordinates, and he keeps darting nervous glances at him, which Sulu pretends not to notice.

When they go off-shift, Chekov springs out of his seat, but Sulu stops him. “Hey, you wanna get something to eat?”

Chekov, trapped, obviously sees no way to plausibly turn down the invitation. “Sure.”

In the mess hall, Chekov stammers, blushes, drops things, and generally acts like a gawky adolescent. Sulu’s heart goes out to him.

When he bumps into the doorway on the way back to crew quarters, Sulu decides enough is enough.

“Come here,” he says, hauling Chekov into a nearby storeroom. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Chekov demands, not meeting his eyes.

“Look, last night…did I do anything stupid?”

“Stupid?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I don’t remember.”

Chekov definitely looks relieved. “No, not really. Well. You threw your arm around me, and said you loved me. Standard drunk behavior.”

Sulu grins. “Right. But is that all? I’d hate to think I’d made a fool of myself, or made anyone uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t do anything to make anyone uncomfortable.”

Sulu’s brows shoot up. _Is he saying what I think he’s saying? No, ridiculous, he thinks I don’t remember and he’s glossing over it._ “But I _kissed_ you!”

Chekov’s eyes go wide, and for a moment Sulu thinks he's going to bolt. “You said you didn’t remember!” he accuses him, furious.

“I lied. I thought it’d make it easier on you. Obviously it hasn’t. So, did you mean that, or were you just trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug?”

Chekov looks him in the eye for the first time during the conversation. “I meant it.”

Sulu stares at him, his thoughts racing. _Just because he put up with it doesn’t mean he wants me to do it again, or he could be trying to make me feel better, or in denial or–_

His thoughts crash to a halt as Chekov kisses him. He flails for a moment, then settles down, and the kid can _kiss_ , his hand in Sulu’s hair, the other on the back of his neck, and Sulu wraps his arms around him and opens his mouth.

When they finally break apart, Chekov grins at him, looking even younger than usual. “Come on,” he says, and hauls Sulu towards the crew quarters.


End file.
